Essay On Gender Discrimination In To Kill A Mockingbird

Women’s rights and their social status, one of the most controversial yet concerned topics that keeps raising the society’s attention. Ever since the existence of inequality between male and female had been discovered, people had never stopped reflecting on it. In Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, gender bias, along with racial discrimination, are tied together to serve as the major themes of the story. By using the perspective of a misfitting tomboy Scout, Lee vividly painted out the reality of women’s role of life in a typical Southern town during the early 1900s. Through the struggles Scout faced growing up as a girl, one can see, from the eyes of an innocent kid, how “being a lady” was defined as and judged for back in the day.

During the setting time of To Kill a Mockingbird, women clearly did not have nearly as many rights as they do nowadays, and to think that it was only less than eight decades ago. The struggles and misunderstandings Scout faced growing up as a girl all seem to be so distant and absurd by now, as if they should never have been of any problems. Improvements have definitely been made, since the rise of equal human rights not only broke down the barrier of racial discrimination, but also gender bias along with it. Unfortunately, even in the time of today, gender bias can still limit people to reach their fullest potential and often have negative consequences. But to rationally analyze the root of the problem, instead of blindly blaming the opposite gender, is what that could really evolve and improve the society’s tilted scales. After all, the contemporary situation of the society is just a result of the impacts from the people within it; as long as prejudice continues its existence in the hearts of people, gender bias would never cease to regulate its vicious cycle. In the end, it all comes down to the simplest truth that fits for all ages, “to better the world, one must better